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Common Core Craziness

Common Core just keeps getting weirder. Today, we have two juxtaposed pieces of information. One that shows students being indoctrinated into praising Common Core, the other showing how clearly Common Core fails to educate children.

First, the indoctrination. A substitute teacher at Wake County Elementary School in North Carolina saw a group of 80 fifth graders reciting a poem at their “promotion ceremony” celebrating the close of the last school year. The poem, We Learned More with Common Core, was memorized and recited by students to praise the curriculum. Each stanza of the poem listed different things they had learned and ended with the title of the poem, such as “Fractions, decimals, journal prompts galore / We learned more with Common Core.”

Supporters of Common Core, of course, say too much is being made of the poem. June Atkinson, state superintendent of public instruction, said “It’s just students expressing what they’ve learned throughout the year. Is it a bad thing that they learned about decimals and fractions with the Common Core?” Of course not. My question is why they know they learned it through Common Core. I certainly don’t know what my curriculum was called, and was never made to learn a poem to praise it. With Common Core being a contentious issue in North Carolina, does it seem more likely that these children were being used as junior mouthpieces? If Common Core is so great, the results should speak for themselves.

What about that fantastic education Common Core supposedly offers? It turns out that teachers might not be so interested in children learning and getting correct answers. A video is making the rounds that shows a Common Core training session in which teachers are encouraged to accept wrong answers. The woman speaking states “even if they said three times four was eleven…we’re really more interested in the how.” If the child can explain how they got to the answer, even if they got the answer wrong.

Incorrect answers are acceptable if the student can explain why they got that answer? Are we going to accept this lowering of standards, this dumbing down of American children? How many stories like these are out there which we never hear? Let’s work together to stop Common Core before it’s too late.

To use children as a way to push an ideology is inexcusable, it is nothing less than brainwashing. The fact that we have come to the point where our children are being indoctrinated, be it Common Core or Obamacare or anything else, is quite frightening. I have read several articles of this type of indoctrination happening around the country. This reminds me of China and Mao-tse-Tung. I also see other things happening in this country that strongly reminds me of the Communist regime in Russia years ago. Why are people so blind that they can't see what they are leading this country into? We can't just blame Obama and his administration, it is in the school system, it is in the public sector, it is in the political parties. I used to scoff when I read blogs and people would call the Liberals and Progressives communists, I don't scoff now. Everyday I hear on the news or read on the internet what is happening in this country and I have to say, I have a great fear of what is happening to us and what we are loosing bit by bit every day.

As parents desiring to find a proper high school education for our 13 year old son, we have been researching a prep school in Indiana that shares our values of faith, founders and traditional academics. This school, as does the majority of all prep schools, employs the services of the SSAT (Secondary School Admissions Test) exam. It’s this that I want to discuss.

What an amazing 3 days with the WV Against Common Core(WVACC) crew & Dr. Sandra Stotsky! We had great turnout on Sunday in Bridgeport, WV. FreedomWorks joined West Virginians Against Common Core to host a town hall forum on Common Core.

I am an Chinese immigrant who come to America to seek freedom from the Communist China. I was born right before China’s Cultural Revolution and grew up in Chengdu, Capitol of Sichuan province, China. As you know, in China there is only one party that is truly in power: The Communist Party. The government, which is the Communist Party, controls everything: Factories, schools, the press, hospitals, land, and universities. Growing up there, I never heard of such a thing as a “private company." There were no choices of any sort. We were all poor. We had no gas or stove, no TV, no phones, no refrigerators, and no washing machines. In the cities, electricity was rationed. In the countryside, there was no electricity.

My name is Mary Allison Page and I live in Gibsonville, North Carolina. This year, I will be a rising sophomore at Western Alamance High School. On Wednesday morning, I addressed the North Carolina Mining and Energy Commission to express my support for hydraulic fracturing in North Carolina. I attended the hearing with FreedomWorks activists from all across North Carolina.

Providing an excellent example of baseless judicial activism is Judge Todd Hernandez from the 19th Judicial District Court in Louisiana. In a decision starved of legal grounding and reasoning, Judge Hernandez prohibited Gov. Bobby Jindal from halting the implementation of the Common Core educational standards with executive orders BJ 2014-6 and BJ 2014-7 and the Office of Contractual Review’s retraction of the contract with DRC (Data Recognition Corporation) to assist with the introduction of Common Core.

I'm a mom. I also blog. I'm very much in tune with how my children operate and am very plugged into their lives. I have two children, my oldest is school aged and my fight against Common Core began with them in Kindergarten. This was my first time in the public school round-up since I had been in the system as a student. Both my child and I were excited for this next chapter of his life. I joined the PTA, I got involved in volunteering and thought things were going well. I thought wrong.

Washington, DC- Following news that a Louisiana District judge overruled Governor Jindal's attempt to overturn Common Core for reasons of "irreparable harm" to those who have been preparing for the changes, FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe released the following statement:

On Thursday, August 7, 32 North Carolina FreedomWorks activists gathered in Greensboro. Over 35 activists from 8 counties enjoyed good food and great conversation while writing letters to Senator Kay Hagan and making protest signs about ObamaCare. Activists then traveled to Senator Hagan's main office in Greensboro to meet with staff and host a protest out front on the busy street.